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Most interactive seminar at National Convention 2008?
Submitted by howardlake on 11 July, 2008 - 12:39.
The late afternoon slot at a conference is always a tricky one, but that is when some legacy fundraising experts managed to pull off, in my view, the most engaging, useful and enjoyable session at this week's National Fundraising Convention in London.
"Roll up! Roll up to the Legacy Marketplace - Find out about your legacy future" was presented by Paul Farthing (High Value Relationships Director at Cancer Research UK), Graham Richards, freelance fundraiser, and Stephen George, Development Director Legacies at NSPCC (who blogs on UK Fundraising).
Walking into the room we found all chairs had been cleared away, and we had to gather into a circle. Then the three presenters got to speak for a short time on their soap boxes (OK, chairs) to convince us of their vision of the future of legacy fundraising. Would legacies all be made, stored and updated online? Would legacy marketing disappear as a discipline? Was local the future? Should we bring back titheing, or stop asking for pledges? Shouldn't we acknowledge that charities would always come second to families in a donor's priorities?
We were each given a colourful plastic ball and encouraged to throw it at the speaker if we disagreed with them. The audience didn't hold back!
Right at the end we all had to re-enact 70's ITV children's programme Runaround and run to stand in front of the speaker whose vision we most agreed with.
It was all great fun and covered a good deal of ground in a short time. Balls were thrown and we even had a dissenting, or more accurately, synthesising view from legacy fundraisers Carol Johns at RNID and Richard Popper RNLI.
In many ways this bore the hallmarks of an unconference, a very funky development for the Institute of Fundraising annual convention.
So, here are some snapshots of the seminar as it progressed to give you a sense of what we enjoyed. (Apologies to Paul Farthing whose compelling performance I didn't manage to capture).
Stephen George #1
Stephen George #2
Graham Richards #1
Graham Richards #2
Graham Richards #3
Carol Johns RNID and Richard Popper RNLI #1
Carol Johns RNID and Richard Popper #2
And the winning speaker was - Stephen George.
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Good approach
I personally would welcome a few more of these different styles of session at the IoF Convention, and indeed at other events in the sector. Anything that truly engages the audience is a good idea, provided there is practical and useable content on offer and it is not simply a case of style over substance.
On the other hand, too many of these different kind of seminars might overload some people. There's only so much interaction some people can cope with, and sometimes it's quite pleasant to sit and take notes from a speaker.
One practical downside of such a stand-up session was that it was difficult to take written notes. In practice that wasn't a problem because the session I think aimed to spark ideas and stimulate discussion, rather than pass on practical, how-to advice.
So maybe the bigger-picture seminars would benefit from an alternative approach, but keep the how-to sessions on a more traditional footing?
I got the sense that legacies were fairly high on the convention agenda. They have their own track, don't they? What else could be done? Has there been a 'Focus on...' legacies day or series of sessions at the Convention recently?
Thanks
As Stephen says thanks very much for the feedback. In pulling the session together we were very consious that the approach could work very well or it could come across as too much style with not enough substance. I do think that the timing helped - people had sat and listened to quite a few presentations by then and were ready for something a little different. We'll have to see how we were scored by the attendees but the feedback we've had so far suggests that both my facilitation of the speakers and their "legacy visions" went down well and of course thanks to Richard Popper & Carol Johns for their willingness to make an impromptu presentation
Allan
Most interactive sessiona at the national convention 2008?
Stephen
Great to see this feedback Howard! Thank you. The leading lights in this were Paul and Allan - their idea and drive - thought they were mad but actually they were spot on. Allan thought of the balls by the way! The real issue was to find a way to engage away from powerpoint - I wonder what people felt about 2 things - a) this, as a way to engage at the IOF and b) how to get legacies much further up the agenda? Be interesting to see any perspectives on this?